Beautiful Things
by HecateA
Summary: In which Lacy and Nyssa realise that their parents' realms aren't all that different, and neither are they. Oneshot. Written for the Percy Jackson Ship Weeks, Slash week! (4 7)


**Percy Jackson Ship Weeks Slash Week continues to be awesome with another story, yay! Keep giving me ideas for what I'll write on Friday because I have no idea right now. Anyways, this is a new ship that Maddi (that bugger) made me ship. Seriously, 24 hours after she suggested the pairing to me I was on Pinterest planning the wedding. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters portrayed below.**

**Dedication: Maddi, who makes me ship these things mercilessly. **

* * *

**Beautiful Things**

* * *

You make beautiful things  
You make beautiful things out of the dust  
You make beautiful things  
You make beautiful things out of us  
-Gungor, _Beautiful Things _

* * *

The door of the forge slid open and Lacy felt like squeaking.

She'd been hoping that Beckendorf would answer, or maybe Jake. Someone friendly or approachable as far as children of Hephaestus went. Someone not scary. Instead she got Nyssa Taylor. Lacy would have run for the hills right away but she kept her hands firmly bunched up around the chain. She was _not _going another day without this necklace fixed.

"Can I help you?" Nyssa asked. She was wearing a tank top made from a cut-up camp shirt, exposing more dark skin and more muscled arms than when Lacy saw her at meals or campfires. Her dark hair was put up in a careless bun. Her nose, lips and cheekbones looked like they had been sculpted out of clay- symmetrical, hard, solid. A dog tag dangled from her neck.

"I need someone to fix something," Lacy said nervously. "Is there someone who's particularly used to fixing jewelry?"

"That'd be me," Nyssa said.

Lacy nearly laughed, but Nyssa's dark glare made her stop.

"Really?" She asked, her voice quiet.

"Yes, really. What, do you need to get something fixed?" Nyssa asked.

She considered running away.

"I'll fix it, no problem," Nyssa said. "But you've got to stop pissing me off."

Lacy gulped and held out the necklace.

"The chain broke," she said.

Nyssa took it and examined it.

"Is that an opal?" She asked.

Lacy nodded.

"It's nice. 14 grams?"

It didn't sound like much of a question, but Lacy came out with: "I don't know..."

Nyssa wasn't paying attention. "And the chain is… gold plated? How old is it? It feels Victorian."

"You can _feel _it?"

"The metal," Nyssa said as if that should explain everything. "You've got a few loose diamonds. See that one that's framing the opal with all the others? Could come out any time."

Lacy rubbed her eyes. "I never even _wear _it and it just breaks anyways…"

"I can fix it," Nyssa said.

"If it's so fragile then maybe it's not worth the…"

Nyssa shot Lacy a murderous look. "I have _never _broken anything while trying to fix it. You can come _watch _if you like but…"

"No, no, that's not what I meant- I _trust _you…" Lacy said.

Nyssa's eyes didn't let it up.

"Sure," Lacy said shyly. She followed Nyssa into the forge, past guys and girls wearing aprons as they cast swords and earplugs as they swung hammers. The scent of an underground parking lot hit Lacy like a train, but the fumes were pretty odourful as well.

Nyssa turned around and sneered at Lacy who was busy covering her nose. She blushed and dropped her hand.

Lacy hadn't realised that the forge was such an intricate setup. The fires and the anvils were near the entrance- it was probably where most of the children of Hephaestus spent their time- along with workbenches and bins of power tools. After the anvils there were more and more work benches. Catwalks criss-crossed the ceiling, industrial lighting hung from the ceiling. This place had to be bigger on the inside... There were corkboards holding tools on the wall, bins and nail drawers everywhere. The whole thing looked like a disorganised mess to Lacy, but the children of Hephaestus were going around and picking up tools like they knew exactly where everything was.

A girl with a long braid was hanging from one of the catwalks that criss-crossed above the floor space and tweaking some kind of flying machine that was also dangling. Jake Mason's legs were sticking out from underneath a car that someone else was welding a canon to. Another guy was straddling a Pegasus automaton as he inserted the battery- which Lacy figured was the reason for the male lifespan to be so short.

In the quieter part of the forge, automatons were being worked on. A girl with frizzy hair was working on a crane that could pick up and dispose of Greek fire safely, instead of having demigods light it and run for their lives. Beckendorf was working on some kind of tiny automaton that required him to wear magnifying glasses. He yelped and swore, shaking his hand. Had it _bitten him?_

"Wear gloves," Nyssa called out.

"I'm okay," Beckendorf said, sucking on his finger. A cage containing more crawling robot bugs wasn't too far from him.

It was at this table that Nyssa sat down, pulling on her own pair of glasses.

"You're Aphrodite, right?" Beckendorf said. "Your name's Lacy?"

"Yeah," Lacy squeaked.

"What's Nyssa fixing for you today?" Beckendorf asked. Lacy knew that he only cared because of Silena, but it was pretty sweet.

"A family heirloom," she said.

"It's Victorian," Nyssa said. "This is some really good craftsmanship… I'm starting to think we're around 1825 with this one…"

She reached for a pair of pliers and Lacy's eyes must have popped, because Beckendorf interjected.

"Nyssa's great with that kind of stuff," Beckendorf said. "She plays in the cars and the automatons mostly, but she comes from a family of fine jewellers."

"Taylor Stones," Nyssa mumbled. "Family owned and operated- they pick them up in foreign countries, cut, design and produce themselves."

"My father works with them," Lacy blurted. Nyssa looked up and shot her a look- questioning this time, so even if she weren't wearing the funky glasses it wouldn't have been much scary. "He's in fashion."

"You guys have so much in common," Beckendorf said teasingly.

He tried, but children of Hephaestus weren't all that chatty. Their quiet contrasted with the chaotic cabin Lacy had just come from. She folded her hands in front of her stomach and looked around at the forge, listening to the anvils and the kids laughing with each other and the planning and the power tools...

Less than fifteen minutes later, Nyssa put down her tools and handed Lacy the necklace.

"Good as new," she said.

"It… it is," Lacy said smiling. "Thank you! I owe you one."

"You don't owe me anything," Nyssa said. "This is what I do."

"That doesn't mean it's not super cool," Lacy said. "I'll pass you down my marshmallows at the next camp fire, alright?"

Nyssa didn't smile, but there was a certain contentment in the way she said "Sure, whatever."

* * *

Lacy was basically in paradise.

Nyssa's different projects were all laid out on the worktable next to boxes and bubble wrap. They were all so pretty, Lacy felt like an ogling teenage boy. She was nearly afraid to slobber on all the different pieces of jewellery- which ranged from contemporary to classic to antique-looking.

There was a necklace made out different golden leaves bunched together. Chokers with incredibly detailed bronze lions posed at the throat, looking so fierce Lacy was afraid that they'd pounce. Drachmas –bent and burned and half-melted, a fate reserved for a lot of coins carried around by demigods- were strung together on a delicate chain. Contemporary arrangements of round, square and triangular stones hung as pendants. A round opal was framed by silver petals and rhinestones. Earrings that looked like dangling geometric 3D shapes. Sumptuous gold collars pierced with rubies and openings showing skin that looked heavy enough to weigh down your neck, but pretty enough to be worth it. Wire folded and bent so that it would spell out your name around your wrist was part of the mix, and so were bracelets made of tiny metal circles on leather cords. Golden bangles on which seventeen different stones had been cast like elongated traffic lights, gold and silver laurels linked together…

"Don't drool on my stuff," Nyssa said hauling a box on the work table. "What are you here for again? If your necklace broke again, I'm sorry but I'm a bit busy."

"Beckendorf told Silena that you needed someone to help you out and she sent me," Lacy said.

Nyssa arched an eyebrow and Lacy bit her lip.

"You?" She asked.

Lacy flushed red. The only reason Silena had sent her was because Lacy hated her cabin. Well, not her cabin. She liked her cabin mates, most of them were sweet deep down. She hated the amount of people, the level of energy, the gossip made her nervous, she always felt so claustrophobic with all the touching and hugging and giggling… when Mitchell wasn't there, the Aphrodite cabin used to be unbearable. Though she was starting to grow out of her shyness and sleep through the nights and get her anxiety under control and laugh and smile in public, Lacy didn't like overdoing it. She needed quiet time. Silena knew, and she did her best for Lacy. This often meant that Lacy would sweep the Big House or play pinochle with Mr D when Chiron was helping half-bloods train (this was her least favourite job), do Silena's counselor chores for her if they were simple (like unpacking boxes at the camp store) or she'd help Katie and Miranda weed the strawberry fields or keep watch over their army of young children of Demeter. Any odd job around camp, really. It made Lacy feel useful too.

"I can't make things, but if you need help cleaning or packing things, I'm your girl." Lacy said. She hoped that she didn't sound desperate. If Nyssa sent her back and asked for Drew, she was done for.

"Okay," Nyssa said. "Alright. You actually have good taste, so that's good."

"Why?" Lacy frowned.

"I'm going home for Christmas break," Nyssa said. She couldn't sound more unenthusiastic. "I have to bring as many pieces as I can- to show them, you know. If my work is good enough, they let me stay at camp. If not, they'll make me come home so that I can learn the family business from them."

"Okay," Lacy said. "It shouldn't be a problem. These are beautiful. I really like that choker."

The choker was made of black lace flower petals, all of which featured silver buttons and supported dangling beads. It made Lacy think of a movie star she really liked, who played these sumptuous and redemptive villains.

"Thanks," Nyssa said. "It's staying here though. The family wouldn't like it. They like the modern or the vintage- nothing in the middle, nothing off the beaten track. Oh, and nothing magic."

"Some of this is magic?" Lacy asked looking around.

Nyssa nodded. "You'll have to try them on to figure out which ones."

She gave further instructions on how to pack and how to identify all the pieces with a Greek letter and name system that she'd developed, but all that Lacy could think of was _gods bless you Silena, this is the best job ever. _

* * *

"You're really great," Nyssa said once the boxes were securely packed and clearly identified.

"Thanks," Lacy said. Nyssa hadn't snapped or hit or bitten or shrieked at her. She really wasn't as mean as Lacy had thought she looked (as was often the case with Lacy and people). Actually, Lacy had liked helping her out. She was funny and snarky when she called out to her brothers and sisters, she didn't mind if Lacy hummed, and whenever Lacy asked about a particular piece Nyssa could explain from top to bottom the concept and production processes. Lacy could listen to her talk about homemade glass beads for hours.

"If I need any more help for anything else, would you exchange labour for marshmallows at the campfire?" Nyssa asked.

Lacy smiled and Nyssa smiled too this time.

* * *

Lacy had been at the forge a few times since. Sometimes it was to sweep during a particularly messy project, or rate designs that Nyssa was iffy about. Sometimes she just perched herself on a work table and watched Nyssa work and cranked the radio when a good song came on. That was something that Lacy never got tired of. Nyssa could make anything- jewellery, birdbaths with moving parts, music boxes with elaborate tunes and ornate covers, glasswork, chimes, chandeliers…

Today was one of those days, where she just popped up and hoped that she wouldn't be in the way, and her eyes popped when she saw the project.

"Whoa," Lacy breathed.

Nyssa had moved all the tables and cleared the floor. She was using a projector and a plan made on a sheet of plastic to project an image on the ground, and she was filling in the spaces with various tiles from various buckets- all colour-coordinated. The result was a breathtaking mosaic map of Camp Half-Blood.

She was crouching by the Big House and she turned around to smile at Lacy. "You like?"

"No I love it," Lacy said smiling. "Wow that's… wow…"

"Chiron says that we don't have time to give the newbies tours anymore," Nyssa said. "It'll help them out, _and _blends in with the décor."

Lacy smiled and shook her head. "You make the most beautiful things, Nyssa."

Nyssa blushed a bit. Or maybe it was the heat of the forges. It was probably the heat of the forges.

"This? Nah, this is easy." She paused for a second. "I could show you how."

"Yeah?" Lacy asked, her eyes popping.

"Yeah," Nyssa said. "Grab that bucket of green tiles and come here. You can get started on the Central Green."

* * *

Molten glass was pouring out of a tube near one of the big fires. The exact set-up escaped Lacy, and would've been beyond her anyways. Her eyes were on Nyssa.

With metal spikes and tongs other tools, she poked at the glass and twisted it and stretched it out. She was literally sculpting the glass as it came out, twisting and shaping it into a beautiful horse. She picked it up and plopped it on the table next to her so it could cool down. Nyssa looked at it and smiled the cutest smile that Lacy had ever seen before nodding her head in satisfaction.

Lacy's jaw dropped. The horse was exquisite. The glass was smooth all over, Lacy could see straight through it. In its powerful legs, Lacy could see tension and strength built up in the muscle so well that she was just about waiting for the horse to gallop off the worktable and run through the forges.

she could see the fiery glint in its eyes and its hair seemed to whip in the wind.

"Don't do that, the fumes you'll inhale are probably toxic," Nyssa said.

Lacy closed her mouth and blushed.

"What's that for?" Lacy asked shyly, thinking that maybe it was part of a wind chime, or a decoration for Poseidon's cabin.

"Nothing," Nyssa said. "I was warming up for a commission."

Lacy's jaw dropped again and Nyssa laughed.

* * *

Lacy and Nyssa now spent time together outside the forge. During campfires, their cabins were next to one another and sometimes they sat next to each other along the seperation border. When Silena and Beckendorf made their cabins have training sessions and practises together, sometimes they partnered up. At the beach, for example, they were even together for no reason except just to hang out. Lacy's toes were at the perfect spot on the beach for the tide to wash in and tickle them, and then wash back out.

Nyssa was hanging back at little, which made conversations weird. When Lacy turned around she realised that Nyssa had, without buckets or shovels mind you, built a sandcastle complete with three different levels, arrow slits in the curtain wall, and a paved road looping all the way to the building on the top.

Lacy grinned.

She never stopped making these beautiful things, did she?

* * *

Nyssa had told Lacy that she'd be working on a mosaic again the next day (this one would be sold on the Hephaestus cabin's Etsy shop, which helped to bring money to fund their expensive inventions and any other repair costs). Lacy was expecting to sort through broken tiles and hand Nyssa tools to cut them as she asked for them, but she'd remembered how messy making the glue had been so she'd come in early to help her clean _that _mess up.

That's when she saw Nyssa perched on an automaton, with her entire arm lost in the motor of a giant eagle who was perched on the forge's floor, with its spread wings curling towards it. She pulled her arm out and it was dripping with motor oil. Nyssa scrubbed herself off on a dirty rag hanging from her pocket, muttering about pitons or something like that, and then grabbed some tools and started working on them again.

She was filthy, wearing her most worn work clothes and covered in various stains. She was tiny compared to the automaton. As she held herself up, her muscles were straining under her skin. She looked comfortable, straddling the eagle's shoulder. She looked intelligent, with her bright eyes fierce and determined and fixated on the automaton in front of her. She looked so in control, rummaging inside a complex series of mechanics that Lacy could barely even tell apart. And when the eagle's wings started beating after a simple move on Nyssa's part, she looked powerful.

Lacy was kind of insanely attracted to people who made themselves powerful.

The thought came to her like a hair on soup, and just like a hair on soup she couldn't unthink it. It _was _true...

Nyssa jumped down and then saw Lacy. The look on her face must have been weird, because Nyssa rubbed the back of her head.

"Hey. You're early."

"Yeah," Lacy said.

"I…" Nyssa said. "I was working on something else…"

"_Yeah," _Lacy said.

Nyssa scratched the back of her head. "To be honest with you Lacy, in here I don't really do mosaics and stained glass and whatever all that much. I know you like them, but my real thing's mechanics. Engineering. To me the beautiful things are screeching motors and oil stains and gears that actually spin together and completed electric circuits and… Yeah..."

"Yeah," Lacy said imagining Nyssa tinkering inside another automaton. "I was kind of over the jewellery too, to be honest."

* * *

Lacy had put herself to work and had started rubbing the motor oil stains off of the worktables and cleaning the tools. Nyssa kept saying things like 'don't worry about it, I'll get it later' but she never did. Not once had Lacy seen Nyssa clean up.

Nyssa put down the tiny automatons that she was working on and pulled out another project from under the table and Lacy nearly died.

It was a breastplate, resting on a mannequin. Nyssa started rummaging for a blowtorch and some tools, but Lacy wanted to yell at her not to because the armour was beautiful and she shouldn't touch it or change it in any way.

Dragons curled in their coiled tails orned the breastplate. The dragons around the shoulders had curls who transformed into vines and encircled the arm and neck holes. Even the straps were beautiful: regular leather engraved with a quote in ancient Greek: "Princesses can slay dragons just as well". It sounded better in Greek.

"You're drooling," Nyssa said. "Again."

"And with good reason!" Lacy said. "Again."

She reached out her hand and Nyssa nodded, so Lacy spun the mannequin around. The back was similarly decorated except the dragon on the back had wickedly curled claws and sharp horns, as well as a pillar of fire exploding from its jaw.

"This is beautiful. What are you going to _add?" _Lacy said. "How do you top this?"

"Scales," Nyssa said. "On the dragon. Also I'm hoping that if my dad has a second to bless it, it'll because burning hot when an enemy touches it. Like fire, you know?"

Lacy shook her head. "You're crazy. Who's the armour for, anyways?"

"Not sure," Nyssa asked. "It wasn't a commission or anything, I just… I thought of it one day after talking to someone and made it."

"Okay but you have to promise me to find it a good home," Lacy said. "Some lucky newbie or something. This _cannot _end up rusting in the armoury."

Nyssa smiled. "Okay, I promise."

* * *

The Hephaestus Cabin was suffering the hardest blows of the war. Even if your counselor wasn't dating theirs, you knew. But since Lacy's counselor _was _doing unholy things with Cabin 9's counselor, she got to hear a new name daily before watching their funeral. Cat, Taylor, Robert, Thatcher, Cooper, Tanner, Simon…

The latest name was Dominique.

Lacy was at the forges that night hoping to catch Nyssa before she went home for Easter with another cargo of beautiful jewellery to show her family. Nyssa was on a stepladder, working away with a nail and a hammer on a tall piece of stone. When Lacy first saw it, it was engraved with a name in Ancient Greek and small birds.

"That's really pretty," Lacy said.

"It's a funerary _stelae,_ death isn't pretty." Nyssa said bitterly.

Lacy didn't reply. Being snapped at always scared her a bit. Made her think of home.

"I'm sorry," Nyssa said getting off the stepladder and putting her tools down. "I shouldn't snap. It's just not a good day."

"I'm sorry about Dominique," Lacy said. "Is that her _stelae?"_

Nyssa nodded, her fingers touched the birds lightly. "She loved the idea of flying. She built flying machines all the time."

So _she _was the dangling girl. Outside of the forges she wore her hair down and had her feet on the ground, so Lacy had never recognised her. The image of a girl in boyfriend jeans with a big smile, scars on her cheeks and long brown hair that fluttered around her wrists came to mind.

"I'm sure they have flying machines in Elysium," Lacy said.

"She's probably having a conversation with de Vinci right now," Nyssa said cracking a smile. It faded quickly and she tugged at her hair. "Dom was my last sister."

"I'm sorry," Lacy said.

Nyssa shrugged. "It's no big deal. I love my brothers too, it's just… It was _nice _to have another girl around."

Lacy nodded and wrapped an arm around Nyssa awkwardly.

"Don't comfort me, now I feel even worst for snapping at you," Nyssa said. She leaned her head against Lacy's shoulder anyways.

"Don't," Lacy said.

"It's just… when I was building her _stelae _I didn't think to make it pretty," Nyssa said. "Dominique was found in an alley in New York with most of her arm chewed off and her eyes still open. I didn't _think _of 'pretty' or 'beautiful' when I think of horrible things like death."

"Maybe it's the best way to think about death and terrible things," Lacy said. "To seek out beautiful things when the rest is ugly."

Nyssa didn't reply but she didn't pull back and tell Lacy that that idea was stupid, so there was that.

"I think I'll add colour to it," she finally said.

"That would look good," Lacy agreed.

* * *

"Lacy," Nyssa called. She was just about to head back to her cabin after the campfire. The general energy around camp was that any day now, they would get orders from their counsellors to suit up, climb in the vans and be ready for battle.

"Go ahead without me," Lacy told Silena before turning back to Nyssa. "Yeah?"

"You didn't have to send them away," Nyssa muttered.

"They're ridiculous, yes I did," Lacy said.

"Okay," Nyssa said. "Well, you know, I was thinking about this war that's coming up. And about how everyone's going off on missions and all that, like, Beckendorf has one tomorrow…"

"I heard," Lacy nodded. It was something about the Princess Andromeda, that big cruise ship lurking around the cotinental coasts. Silena had been sleepless with worry.

"And this is silly, but my family's superstitious," Nyssa said. She gave Lacy a velvet box that she opened with a cocked eyebrow. Inside a silver necklace was resting on the satiny pillow. From the chain dangled three silver teardrops holding sapphires in it.

"That's beautiful," Lacy said.

"Sapphires are supposed to be lucky," Nyssa said. "They attract the will and blessings of the gods. So I'm running around using all the sapphires I can find, and I made this and I thought it was pretty so I thought that you'd like it."

Lacy smiled.

"Nyssa, I _adore _it," she said. "And you want me to keep it?"

"Yeah," Nyssa said. "Blessings of the gods and stuff. That can't ever be bad."

Lacy smiled.

"Help me put it on?" She asked. Nyssa nodded and took the box back and she lifted her hair up.

* * *

Nyssa was a workhorse right now. Adrenaline and grief kept her up, as she produced more arrows and extra spears and swords in a day than Lacy had seen her make in days. Greek fire was brewed, complex bombs were hooked up, chariots were oiled… The Hephaestus Cabin, all four of them, were preparing for war. Four demigods –one of them barely nine years old- were working at the speed of a factory.

"Nyssa," Lacy said quietly.

"I'm busy," she said as she poked at some wires and metal pieces with a pair of tweezers.

"Nyssa," Lacy said again.

"_I'm busy," _Nyssa snapped.

"No, you're tired and things are dark and you need to rest or no amount of bombs will get you through the battle," Lacy snapped back.

Nyssa looked surprised at first, about the bit about Lacy snapping, but then she looked defeated.

"Come on," Lacy said reaching out to take Nyssa's hands. "I'll come tuck you in."

Nyssa may know how to make beautiful things, but Lacy knew how to keep them beautiful- or at least from getting ugly.

A little bit of good old fashioned TLC.

* * *

The Plaza Hotel had been, during a late night cabin-wide discussion, agreed to be in the Top Ten list of wedding destinations. Never would Lacy have thought that she'd have been there in the middle of the war.

More particularly, to get her arm put in a cast. And for Will Solace to have a look at her jaw.

She'd been thrown off a dracanae she'd been straddling and stabbing (it had been terrifying to feel that angry and strong) by a Hyperborean, and Lacy had landed on the face, with her arm placed all wrong. It was broken and her jaw was most definitely fractured, Will said. He couldn't do much for now –he kept talking about surgery and braces and things like that later on- but for now he'd immobilised Lacy's jaw and put a healing spell on her so that the piece of her gums that had cracked would stay put and none of the loose teeth would fall out. She'd spit out three since her accident and had chipped two. Silena had been horrified when she'd been consoling Lacy, but she'd run off to help Annabeth Chase now.

Lacu felt lonely. Her mouth hurt, her face felt disgusting because she'd been crying when they'd brought her in, and the fact that Will hadn't been able to do anything right away scared her. She didn't see Mitchell or any of her brothers and sisters. The Hephaestus kids weren't back from the battlefield yet, and Lacy doubted that they'd stop fixing things and taking care of the raging automatons anytime soon. The Hunters of Artemis were all there and Lacy remembered hearing that Thalia Grace was nice, but she was too anxious at the moment to risk approaching new people. She saw Laurel from Cabin 7, but she was overworked with all the injuries to do more than wave at Lacy and give her an exhausted wave. She couldn't much on the Demeter kids' buffet because of how much her mouth hurt, and she could barely talk to anyone for the same reason.

Someone sat down next to her and wrapped an arm around her. She sat at Lacy's right, on the side opposite her injury. All of a sudden she was super self-conscious. She felt awkward with the gauze and the icepack against the side of her face, the cotton stuffing her cheek, and probably a black eye settling in and a bulky cast weighing down her arm.

"I've been looking for you really hard," Nyssa said softly.

"Really hard?" Lacy asked.

"Yes," Nyssa said. "I've been all over the place."

"Why?"

"You're the one who told me to seek out beautiful things when things were bad."

Lacy's stomach fluttered and then she came to a screeching halt.

She could easily have landed in any other way and split her head open and bled out on a random street in Manhattan, her siblings too busy holding the lines to take care of her. She could have been projected through the glass windows of the perfume shop and have shrapnel through her eyes and mouth and scalp. She could easily have broken a leg instead of an arm and have been picked up by some kind of scavenger monster looking leftovers. She could easily have died in a thousand other ways. Lacy was lucky to be alive and if alive meant being called beautiful by a beautiful girl in a middle of a war, then damn it, she was going to be alive for real.

"If my mouth were in better shape I'd kiss you," she bravely managed to spit out.

Nyssa pecked her good cheek. The best first kiss that Lacy could have imagined.

"There. That should keep me together until you're better," Nyssa said. She pushed a piece of hair out of Lacy's face and smiled crookedly. Lacy smiled back as widely as she could, but it wasn't as bright as she'd like it to be thanks to her mouthful of cotton and the icepack and the medical tape and, and, and...

"Beautiful," she declared.

And Lacy trusted her on it.

She was the expert.

* * *

**Upcoming ship weeks**

**August**

**10 - 16 **- Free slash week (author's pick of a same-sex story)

**17 - 23 **- Free friendship week

**24 - 30 **- Chris and Clarisse

**31 - 06 **- Jason and Reyna

**September**

**07- 13 **- Jason and Piper

**14 -20 **- Frank and Hazel

**21 - 27 **- Calypso and Leo

**28 - October 4 **- Percy and Annabeth


End file.
